DF-DM: A foundational process model for multimodal data fusion in the artificial intelligence era

In the big data era, integrating diverse data modalities poses significant challenges, particularly in complex fields like healthcare. This paper introduces a new process model for multimodal Data Fusion for Data Mining, integrating embeddings and the Cross-Industry Standard Process for Data Mining with the existing Data Fusion Information Group model. Our model aims to decrease computational costs, complexity, and bias while improving efficiency and reliability. We also propose "disentangled dense fusion", a novel embedding fusion method designed to optimize mutual information and facilitate dense inter-modality feature interaction, thereby minimizing redundant information. We demonstrate the model's efficacy through three use cases: predicting diabetic retinopathy using retinal images and patient metadata, domestic violence prediction employing satellite imagery, internet, and census data, and identifying clinical and demographic features from radiography images and clinical notes. The model achieved a Macro F1 score of 0.92 in diabetic retinopathy prediction, an R-squared of 0.854 and sMAPE of 24.868 in domestic violence prediction, and a macro AUC of 0.92 and 0.99 for disease prediction and sex classification, respectively, in radiological analysis. These results underscore the Data Fusion for Data Mining model's potential to significantly impact multimodal data processing, promoting its adoption in diverse, resource-constrained settings.